Explications

20

Explications

    “So,” said Paul, handing his brother a cigar when they were at last alone in the study that evening: “what did you do, blot your copybook?”

    Luís pulled an awful face. “More or less. Well, in the first place, Tia Ana had some dog-faced female with a yaller skin lined up for me, and went into strong hysterics when I said I’d rather have ’em cut off.”—Paul goggled at him.—“Or words to that effect,” he said, grinning.

    Paul had recovered himself. He blew a smoke ring. “Lost it, have you?” he drawled.

    Luís laughed complacently, looking very pleased with himself.

    “Well, go on: who was she?” demanded his brother, grinning. “A Spanish dasher?”

    “Er—well, no: that wath later.”

    Paul had to swallow, but managed to say mildly: “Go on, then.”

    “Well, a girl on the estate. I was afraid Madre would throw ten fits, and I was quite sure that Harry would skin me alive, only the old fellow wrung my hand and bashed me on the back as if I’d given him a present! And naturally I said I would provide for the girl out of my portion—well, she wath a virgin, y’know,” he said with a slight cough; “only somehow or another Madre and Tia Ana jacked it all up between ’em! Only then—um—well, first Consuelo, that’s Tio Pedro’s fourth daughter, started—um—making sheep’s eyes, you know?” He gave a silly grin. “I never encouraged the girl, Paul, I swear!”

    “Naturally she was a dog-face with a yaller skin,” he noted.

    “Uh—well, no, takin’ little thing, actually, big black eyes, and—er—” He gestured vaguely in front of his own slim chest.

    Paul had a coughing fit.

    “Yes,” said Luis, grinning. “Well, old Tio Pedro wasn’t best pleased, y’see—well, I know he wanted to marry poor Alfonso off to Gaetana, only that’s different, the poor fellow’s a half-wit! Um, where wath I? Oh, yes: Tio Pedro has some big-wig’s son lined up for poor little Consuelo. Dare say he’s a half-wit, too: frightful lot of inbreeding in Spain, y’know!”

    Paul nodded, with a wry grimace.

    “Yes, well, poor little thing,” he said with a sigh. “So it didn’t go down too well, and my name was mud for a bit, and girl was shunted off to stay with some dashed aunt or other. But then—” He broke off.

    “The Spanish dasher?” asked Paul eagerly, his eyes twinkling.

    “Sí,” he admitted, with a foolish grin on his face rather than the smirk that Paul had been expecting. “Well, Hell, Paul, I wathn’t to know! Fernando—the one that’s Tio Pedro’s son—Fernando and a friend of his and Alfonso took me visiting—dashed respectable family, y’know, nothing smoky at all, and—um…”

    “Never tell me you seduced the daughter of a respectable family, dear lad: they would not have let you leave Spain without cutting them off!” he gasped.

    “No! Well—um—well, there was this aunt.”—Paul’s eyes bulged: he hadn’t quite expected that.—“Well, big family: she wouldn’t be all that much older than the oldest son of the house. Anyway, married, and so forth, with a couple of daughters round Maria’s age, and I didn’t think anything of it when she pressed me to call! Well, just thought she might be sounding me out for one of the daughterth, you know the sort of thing.”

    “And?” said Paul feebly.

    “Uh—well, went to call the first time, all right and tight, the husband wasn’t in evidence but I didn’t think anything of it, there was this old prima or some such with her, gave me a decent glass of wine. Some of that Spanish wine’s as rough, you wouldn’t believe, old fellow—”

    “LUÍS!” shouted Paul. “What HAPPENED?”

    “I’m trying to tell you! Nothing, the first time. I never got a sniff of the girls, but I thought that was all right, you know Spain: probably under lock and key behind a grille somewhere, giving me the once-over.” He puffed on his cigar. “These aren’t bad,” he noted.

    “Luís!

    “Well, the aunt presses me to call again, and—well, not much to do, sleepy little country town, and the nephews are decent types, took us hunting and that, so I thought, why not? So I went and—uh—well, this time she was out on the terrace, wearing this draped thing, and there seemed to be no-one around but an old servant: old peasant woman. And we have a glass of wine, and she’s lying back in this damned chair, you see, and—um—next thing y’know, the dashed woman’s hand’s on me pantaloons!”

    “You, of course, then gave a virginal scream and rushed from the house, sobbing your little heart out.”

    “Well, what would you have done?” retorted Luís hotly.

    “About what you did, I imagine.”

    Luís grinned.

    “What was she like?”

    He rolled his eyes. “Hot as Hell, dear lad! My little country wench was keen, but Doña Alejandra—!” He whistled. “Swore she’d never been unfaithful to her husband before, this was the first time in sixteen years of marriage—well, you’d have believed she needed it if you could have met the husband, and by God it felt like she’d been saving it up for sixteen years—and, well, tra-la, you know the sort of thing.”

    “Do I?”

     Luis goggled at him. “You do if that blonde little piece in the Rue des Petits Moines was any indication!”

    “All right! Mme La Pérouse. She was a friend of Madre’s, wherever I went she seemed to—Yes, well, makes two of us!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes.”

    “What happened, did the husband find out?”

    “No, Tio Pedro did,” he said with immense gloom.

    “He’s not that straight-laced, is he?” said Paul, goggling at him.

    “No, but Paul, you don’t understand! She wath Tio Pedro’th mistress!” he revealed, shuddering.

    Paul gave a shriek of laughter.

    “It wasn’t funny at the time, I can tell you!” said Luís with feeling. “And you should have heard Pa! Not looking before you leap, fouling his own nest, the boy goes round with beans in his ears, needs his bum wiped for him, unfit to be out of leading-strings— Well, you know the style,” he said, grimacing.

    “Mm. It does sound very like the time he found out about me and Mme La Pérouse,” he noted.

    “Yes,” said Luís, grinning. “So he said I’d better bring the carpets over to you—give Tio Pedro time to cool down.”

    “Will he?” said Paul, goggling at him.

    “Oh, I think so. Well, apparently hasn’t seen the woman for years. Paid off the husband to take her off his hands—you know the style. Only thing is, the little girls are both hith,” he said, making a face.

    Paul whistled.

    “Well, how was I to know?”

    Paul got up and kindly poured him a glass of brandy. “Anyone but a gudgeon might have guessed. Or at least looked before he leapt!”

    “Shut up,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Here, I say, did old La Pérouse ever find out?”

    “Er—well, I think he probably knew all along, looking back. Never said anything to me, though, and as far as I know, never said anything to her. Um—no, she went to see Pa and made a scene, when I—um—had cooled off.”

    “Merde,” said Luis.

    “Mm. Harry evidently told her she ought be ashamed, chasing after a boy young enough to be her son!” he choked.

    “Lord. Good for Harry. Wouldn’t have stopped him tearing a strip off you, of course.”

    “No. Told me that type had ‘hysterical clinger’ written all over ’em and I’d better damn’ well learn to recognize it if I wanted to survive in polite society! –Well, plus the rest,” he recognized. “Never told me I had beans in me ears, though!”

    “No, well, you have never had a torrid affaire with the discarded mistress of your uncle,” he said carefully.

    “Torrid and public?”

    “Er—well, Fernando and his friend certainly didn’t keep it to themselves, no.”

    “Why the Hell did you tell them?” he said, goggling at him.

    “I didn’t!” shouted Luís furiously. “SHE did!”

     Paul broke down entirely and laughed till he cried.

    “Wanted to prove she still had it, stupid cow,” Luís elaborated, pouting, and momentarily looking younger than Bungo. “She’d tried it on with them, you see, and they were too fly.”

    “Don’t—explain!” he gasped. “It’s crystal—clear! The boy’s got—beans—in his ears!”

    “Yes,” admitted Luís, grinning. “Only it was damn’ good while it lasted.”

    “Mm,” Paul agreed in some amusement. “Well, for God’s sake don’t try it on round these parts. Oh, Lord, yes, that’s what I was going to tell you! Mme La Pérouse! We’ve got one!”

    “Eh?”

    “An hysterical clinger,” he said carefully.

    “Oh, God.”

    “Mm. Name’s Lady Charleson. Lives over to the west of us, has a daughter a bit younger than Gaetana, and incredibly silly—takes after her ma—and a son of about your age.—Don’t think he’d appreciate your torrid Spanish ways, he’s definitely still wet behind the ears. Talking of ears.—Anyway, for the Lord’s sake don’t be taken in by the sighs and moans and the flutterings and stuff: she’s got a damned hot look in her eye.”

    “Never fear! Not my type!” said Luis confidently, getting up with a grin. “I must be off to bed: I’m dead! See you in the morning!”

    Paul got up and hugged him, patting him on the back. “I’m very glad you came.”

    “Me, too: I’ve missed you, you old fraud!” he said, strolling off to bed grinning.

    Paul smiled a little. How lordly and grown-up his little brother had become, all of a sudden! Well, it was to be hoped Lady Charleson was not his type—but by his own account it was the more direct approach he seemed liable to succumb to! And Paul doubted very much there was anything of that sort in the vicinity of Dittersford! He went off to bed smiling, but rather ruefully: Luís seemed to have grown up very fast. Desirable though it was that he should have done so.

    “I thought you said he was horridly pious?” said Hildy in amazement. “He was telling me and Hal some story about a priest and a donkey, and I swear he called him a ‘cursed priest’ fifteen times in the course of the story!”

    “Sixteen, if it’s the story he told to me. Well, yes, he was. He’s grown out of it: Madre was sure he would. I expect she and Tia Ana found him a plump little peasant girl,” Gaetana replied placidly.

    “What?” gasped Hildy, turning scarlet.

    “Sí, sí: he has always liked little plump girls, and only turned to the priests after Berthe’s little niece had been sent home out of harm’s way. Well, out of his way. Madre was sure he would be cured as soon as he had had a girl.”

    “Gaetana,” said Hildy, sitting down, plump: “I fear that—that your family’s values are not in the least the same as my family’s!”

    “No. ¿Does it shock you very much, querida?”

    Hildy thought it over. “No, on the whole. I was very surprized, but that isn’t the same, is it? Though I think you had better not let a word of it get to Christa’s ears!”

    “No. But would she find Paul so attractive if he had not had some experience with women?” she wondered.—Hildy was scarlet again but her cousin kindly pretended not to notice.—“No, I am very sure she would not. The English gentry have very odd standards.”

    “Yes,” said Hildy, gulping. “You’re right.”

    “We must invite this one, too,” said Lady Lavinia with a smothered sigh, after reading Mrs Maddern’s polite note in reply to her dinner invitation to the Maddern and Ainsley families.

    “Mr Luís Ainsley, yes: the one who accompanied his papa and mamma to Spain,” agreed Susan mildly.

    “Mm,” said her mother, wondering what the boy had done there to blot his copybook.

    “Won’t put your numbers out, will it, Lavinia?” asked Dezzie, straight-faced.

    Lady Lavinia gave her a look.

    “Sorry,” she said humbly.

    Lady Lavinia rose majestically. “That reminds me: pray accompany me upstairs, Dezzie, my dear.”

    Lavinia was, of course, not so very much older than she, and although Dezzie told herself this every time she was in her aunt’s company it somehow didn’t seem to make much difference. Well, none, really. “Me?” she said weakly.

    “Certainly.”

    Once they were upstairs Lady Lavinia opened her cupboards and with her very own hands held up a lilac silk evening dress under Dezzie’s chin.

    “Oh, dear!” she said, startled.

    “Mamma always said that shade made me look yellow. Can’t see it myself; I rather like it. My lilac bushes—you know, Lavinia, round by the front gate—are just that colour when they’re in flower.”

    “Pray do not distract me, Desdemona, my dear, I am thinking.”

    Dezzie fell silent.

    “It is a pity our complexions are so different,” said Lady Lavinia at last.

    Dezzie looked at her hopefully: perhaps she’d get away with not being tricked out in one of Lavinia’s dresses, after all.

    “Blue is out of the question,” decided Lady Lavinia.

    Dezzie looked rather sad. She liked blue, her Canterbury bells had done magnificently last year.

    “I rarely wear crimson shades,” said Lady Lavinia, getting a heavy plum silk out of the wardrobe.

    “That’s too fancy for me, Lavinia!” said Dezzie in horror.

    “Nonsense, my dear, it has very little trim.” She held it under her chin. “Splendid! With the matching turban, this will be the very thing!”

    “I’m not getting tricked out in a turban!” said Dezzie in horror.

    “Pray do not be ridiculous, my dear,” said Lady Lavinia lightly.—Her aunt’s lightness, Dezzie reflected, was worse than a direct reproof from most other human beings.—“The turban is part of the desired effect. You will look most elegant. And you would not”—she fixed her with a steely blue eye—“desire to put poor little Carolyn to the blush, I presume?”

    “No,” said Dezzie glumly.

    There was a short pause. Lady Lavinia silently admired the effect of the plum with Dezzie’s dark, exotic looks and sought for some way to make her keep the dress without giving offence—but in vain. Unless she said it did not suit her and she had regretted the purchase of it? Finally she said: “This is far more your colour than it is mine. Indeed,”—she gave a little titter: Dezzie looked at her warily—“dear Susan has hinted to me that it was a mistake! Well, I suppose we may all make them, in matters of dress, even at our ages, my dear!”

    “Um—yes. Susan said that?” said Dezzie numbly.

    This was, indeed, the weak point in Lady Lavinia’s story and she replied quickly: “Certainly. She has excellent taste, you know.”

    “Lionel said you was mad as fire because she tried to trick herself out in pink,” said Dezzie in a muddled sort of voice.

    Lady Lavinia drew a deep breath. “That was some time ago, when Susan was much younger and less experienced in such matters. Lionel is very apt to—to pick up a story and not let go of it, however unsuited to the event it may have become.”

    “Harps on it: yes,” agreed Dezzie simply.

    Her aunt drew another breath. “Yes. Well, will you not take this gown off my hands, Dezzie? I am sure I shall never wear it again, and it will get to the point of Sir Lionel claiming I throw away his money only to hide the result in my closet, you know!” she added desperately.

    “I’d hate Lionel to accuse you of that, Lavinia,” said Dezzie on a dry note. “But are you sure you won’t wear it again?”

    With a surge of triumph Lady Lavinia perceived the day was nearly won. “Very sure. Come over to the cheval glass, my dear.”

    Dezzie followed her obediently. Her aunt solemnly held the dress up under Dezzie’s chin, and then, without saying anything, under her own.

    Dezzie gulped. “I must say, it, um…”

    Contrasted with its effect against Dezzie’s glowing, dark face, it looked even worse against Lavinia’s fair skin and silvering fair locks than she had thought it did. She gave a genuine wince. “Makes me look washed-out. Yes, I was a fool ever to have bought it. Though I do so admire these shades, and always thought, in my younger days, that when I was, well, of a certain age— Well, never mind!” she said with a sigh and a smile. “But you will do me a favour if you will take it off my hands, Dezzie!”

    Even Dezzie could see that she would. “Very well, then. I’d be glad of it, my dress has got a new hole and I couldn’t figure out quite how to patch it. You don’t think it makes me look like an Arab, though, do you?”

    “An— Certainly not! What on earth gave you that idea?”

    “Um—can’t remember. Something Giles once said, I think.”

    “Giles!” said Giles’s aunt with unimaginable depths of scorn in her voice.

    “Yes, well, looks like a rag-bag himself half the time,” she admitted with a grin. “Um—well, thanks,” she added awkwardly.

    “Not at all, my dear, it will look splendidly on you. And I shall send you my woman to look to your hair when the time comes, do not worry,” she added kindly.

    Dezzie hadn’t been worrying. She eyed her ironically but said merely: “Thanks, Lavinia. Um, you’ve got more bosom than me, you know, won’t it be a bit loose?”

    “Yes, but that is why I desired you to try it today, for we shall have plenty of time to alter it,” said Lady Lavinia, ringing the bell for her invaluable Gates.

    “I see,” said Dezzie resignedly.

    When the ordeal was over and Gates had removed the last pin from her anatomy and she was back in her brown stuff gown, she said to her aunt—who, naturally, had supervised the entire operation: “Where’s Lionel, by the way?”

    “Er—I believe he is with Giles,” said Lionel’s spouse on a weak note. “Did you wish to speak with him, my dear?”

    “Yes. Well, no. Well, he said we might ride out to look at all this ditching and dyking Giles has been doing. Dare say I could go without him, though: I’ll see if Carolyn fancies the ride.”

    “Er—yes... Well, very likely he may not be with Giles for much longer,” she said on a weak note.

    Failing to remark this weak note and merely thankful that the prolonged session of sartorial torture was over, Dezzie hurried off to get into her riding dress.

    “Why on earth have Lionel and Giles been closeted in the study half the day?” she said idly to Carolyn as they set off.

    “Um—well, it has not been that long, I think... Possibly it’s something to do with the draining of the swampy parts of the estate,” she said dubiously.

    “The Dewesburys’ place isn’t swampy, is it?”

    “I don’t know. But after all, it is the sort of thing that gentlemen like to talk about!” said Carolyn sunnily. She looked about her happily. “It is quite fine today, thank goodness; we have had such dull, cold weather lately. Do you jump, Dezzie?”

    Dezzie goggled at her. “Of course I jump, girl, do you imagine I got round the Peninsula with Hobble without jumping?”

    “Well, no!” said Carolyn with a laugh. “But Miss Maddern does not jump.”

    “Dare say she ain’t had much opportunity,” said Lady Desdemona vaguely. “Poor as church mice, ain’t they?”

     Carolyn reddened. “I would not go that far.”

    “I wasn’t getting at you,” said her half-sister anxiously.

    Carolyn smiled suddenly. “No, I know you were not, Dezzie dear, for I am very sure you have never got at anybody in your whole life!”

    Dezzie was rather taken aback. “I’m no angel,” she said uneasily.

    “No, and you are not starchy, either, like Aunt Lavinia, and not pimsy-mimsy, like Cousin Eunice, thank goodness!”

    “‘Mimsy-pimsy’,” corrected Dezzie with a grin. “Did Giles say that?”

    “Yes. Well, he shouted it, when she would not touch a magnificent roast of beef!” she said with a giggle.

    “Surprized he didn’t say worse,” she noted drily.

    “Actually, he did; but that was when he must have been coming down with her cold, only of course we did not realize that that what was him making so—um—”

    “Ratty.”

    “Yes: ratty!” agreed Carolyn pleasedly. “What a lovely word! And then she burst into tears and said if that was his opinion of her she would not stay another moment under his roof and he shouted very loudly: ‘Get out, then, I’ll be glad to see the back of you, you walking slop-bowl!’”

    Dezzie went into a paroxysm of laughter, though during it not failing to control Midnight effortlessly.

    Carolyn giggled, but looked at her sideways and ventured: “Dezzie, did you ask Giles if you might take Midnight?”

    “Eh? No, why should I?”

    “He is his favourite horse,” she said, swallowing.

    “Is he? Well, if he calls me a walking slop-bowl on the strength of it,” she said drily, “you’ll see some fur fly.”

    “Yes. You are very alike,” she noted.

    “Eh?” she gasped.

    “Yes,” said Carolyn, nodding happily. “Very, very. Everyone says so.”

    Dezzie lapsed into a stunned silence.

    Sir Lionel had gone into the study and coughed.

    “Go away,” said Rockingham, not looking up from the papers he was going over.

    “My Lord, perhaps I should withdraw,” murmured young Mr Wetherby.

    “Rubbish. What you can do,” he said, not looking up: “is tell Sir Lionel that if it is a loan, he may have it, if it is one of my horses, he may not have it, and if it is the piano, I have already named the price I’m prepared to offer him.”

    “Well, it ain’t any of that, and if you imagine I would come to you for a loan, you’ve got another imagine coming, and in any case, I don’t damned well need a loan, I’m not a damned pauper like all those Hammond odd-fellows that hang on your sleeve!” said the baronet loudly and indignantly.

    “Go away, Lionel, I’m busy,” said Rockingham, not looking up.

    “Sir, this could really wait until another duh—” Mr Wetherby sneezed violently, and buried his face in his handkerchief.

    “My God, you’ve got it, now!” cried Rockingham furiously.

    Sir Lionel backed off in alarm. “Look, if this is a Eunice Heather cold, for God’s sake don’t bring it near me! –Remember that damned Christmas the woman infected the entire household?” he said to his nephew-by-marriage.

    “I remember that I did not invite you and Lavinia for that Christmas, any more than I have for next,” he replied nastily. “Get off to bed, David,” he added.

    “It’s nothing, sir!” gasped the secretary, sneezing again. “I beg your pardon,” he added, raising his face from the handkerchief.

    “Get off to BED!” shouted Rockingham. “Why did you not say you were coming down with it, stupid boy?”

    “Well,” said Mr Wetherby, with a rueful smile, “I kept hoping it was not it, rather as your Lordship did.”

    “Aye,” he said wryly. “Cut along, then.”

    Mr Wetherby withdrew. In his wake Sir Lionel fanned the door backwards and forwards briskly.

    “That won’t help, if you’ve got it you’ve got it, you’ve got it,” said Rockingham nastily. “What the Devil do you want?”

    “Um...” Sir Lionel closed the door and wandered into the study. “Poor old Julian still laid up?”

    “YES! What do you WANT?” he shouted.

    “Um—er—well, you know! Nothing, really!” he said with an uneasy laugh.

    The Marquis goggled at him. “‘Nothing, really’? Then why are you wasting my time?” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “I have my agent coming in half an hour, and a parcel of cits from Daynesford about some damned complaint to do with the boys’ home an hour after that, and as David’s laid low I suppose I shall have to write half a dozen urgent letters myself, and I’m due to ride in to Ditterminster to call on the Dean at three this afternoon! Though of course I am not busy,” he added with huge irony.

    “Uh—no, I mean yes. –I say, if you’re going into Ditterminster, could you take the girls, let ’em dawdle round the shops and so forth while you’re at the Deanery?”

    “I intend to ride.”

    “I dare say you might intend to, but Lavinia was saying poor little Carolyn has not so much as showed her nose in the town since you was come down!” he said crossly.

    “No, well, if Eunice Heather was not such a slop-bowl, she might have! But every time taking the barouche out was mooted, it was too cold, or too windy, or she had one of her damned colds!”

    “I can believe that,” he noted. “Look, Giles, it ain’t fair on the girl! I don’t think you realise— Well, I mean, dash it,” he floundered, “you’re in some sort taking her papa’s place, y’know!”

    The Marquis reddened. “Yes,” he said shortly.

    “Poor little thing’s moped as all get out! Tells me she’s dined once at The Towers with the nabob’s widow, and once at the Manor—without you,”—he shot him a nasty look—“and once with that hag of a Purdue female!”

    “Very like. Well, I have been busy: I am always busy when I’m at the Place, and so I warned her.”

    “That’s got nothing to with it!” he shouted. “She’s your RESPONSIBILITY, boy!”

    There was a short silence.

    “Yes,” said his Lordship sheepishly. “Don’t ‘boy’ me, Lionel, I realise I’ve been remiss. –To say truth, the girl bores me to tears—only I know it ain’t an excuse,” he added with a sigh.

    “No, it dashed well ain’t, poor little soul!”

    “Very well, Lionel, I shall take the coach—for alas, I fear it is too windy today for the barouche,” he said in a silly voice: Sir Lionel bit his lip—“and the young ladies may accompany me into Ditterminster. Though I should warn you, Mrs Llewellyn-Jones will insist on giving ’em tea!”

    “Who?”

    “The Dean’s wife, y’fool!”

    “They’ll enjoy that,” he said simply. “Sort of thing young ladies do enjoy.”

    The Marquis winced. “Yes.”

    “Well, go on!”

    Rockingham stared at him.

    “Order up the carriage! Tell the girls you intend to go!”

    “There is plenty— No, very well, of course they will need at least three hours’ notice in order to decide what to wear,” he groaned.

    Sir Lionel ignored this and the Marquis rang the bell.

    When John had departed with his messages he said: “Well? That was it, was it?”

    “Eh?”

    “Scolding me over my callousness in not exposing Carolyn to the social delights of Ditterminster: was that what you wished to see me for, Lionel?” he said coldly.

    “Er—well, no. Nothing to do with it, actually. Just sort of crossed my mind, y’know!” he said airily.

    Rockingham goggled at him.

    Sir Lionel tugged at his neckcloth. “’Nother matter.”

    “You had best sit down,” he said tiredly. “Yes, what is it?” he said as Hollings came in.

    “Mr Richards is here, my Lord. I thought you would wish to be apprised of the fact.”

    Rockingham looked at the clock. “Damn. Thank you, Hollings, you had best ask him to wait. And I think you could see if he desires refreshment, for it seems I may be some little time.” He looked sardonically at Lionel. Lionel looked airily out of the window.

    “Certainly, my Lord.”

    “Apparently I have a household of cowards and nincompoops,” noted Rockingham acidly as the door closed after the butler’s substantial form.

    “Huh?”

    “It is scarcely Hollings’s job to apprise me of the fact that my agent is arrived to see me,” he said drily.

    “Huh? Oh! No well, dare say he did so because you is known to be in such a sparkling good mood today,” he noted with terrible irony.

    “Lionel, the ironic mode does not suit you,” sighed the Marquis. “Well, get on with it! –Or do you wish for refreshment?” he added heavily.

    “Uh… Wouldn’t say no to a glass of Madeira, dear old boy!”

    His Lordship drew a deep breath and rang the bell. Hollings answered it, though it was not precisely his job to do that, either.

    “Has John lost the use of his legs?” enquired the Marquis sweetly.

    “John is h’occupied upon an errand, my Lord,” replied the butler with huge dignity and very apparent mendacity. “Were you wishful to speak with him, my Lord?”

    “No, Sir Lionel was wishful for a glass of Madeira: would you bring the decanter? Oh, and, um, a macaroon or whatever it is those who fancy Madeira at this hour of the morning normally fancy with it.”

    The butler bowed.

    “And be sure and bring it yourself, Hollings,” he added sardonically.

    “Certainly, my Lord,” said the butler, unmoved, withdrawing.

    “Shall we wait for the Madeira?” said the Marquis with a hard look in his eye.

    “Good idea,” replied Sir Lionel brazenly, picking up the Morning Post.

    Rockingham sighed and returned to his papers.

    When Hollings reappeared it was with a footman and a tray of tea, as well as the Madeira.

    “What the Devil’s this?” gasped Rockingham.

    “The tea Mrs Urqhart favoured your Lordship with,” he explained. “A very choice blend indeed.”

    “Hollings, did I ask for tea?” he said dangerously.

    “Miss Carolyn desired me, before she rode out, to see that your Lordship keeps your fluid intake up today in the wake of your Lordship’s recent indisposition,” he replied smoothly.

    Rockingham’s jaw sagged.

    “There, now! Dear little thing! Ain’t that just like her?” said Sir Lionel, not without malice.

    “Ain’t it? Oh, get out, get out,” he said testily to his butler.

    “May I pour for your Lordship?”

    “I will pour. And get out!”

    Hollings bowed and withdrew, as usual, without haste.

    “Go on,” said Lionel. “You must be thirsty after all that shouting.”

    Rockingham glared but otherwise ignored him. Sir Lionel got up, poured himself a decent glass of Madeira, took a piece of the cake which had accompanied it, and sat down again.

    “Well, go on,” said the Marquis with a sigh after the level in the glass had sunk and the slice of cake had disappeared. “Say whatever it is that Lavinia’s sicced you onto me to say and get it over with.”

    “How did you know—?” he gasped.

    “Self-evident,” said Rockingham coldly.

    Sir Lionel gulped. “Uh—yes. Um...” The Marquis merely looked at him coldly. “Dash it, old boy, you’re not making this any easier, y’know!”

    “Indeed?”

    Lionel winced. “Don’t do that, for God’s sake, reminds me of your grandfather!”

    “Oh,” he said, disconcerted. “Well, I’ll try not to. But I don’t see that I can make it easier, Lionel, I haven’t the faintest idea what it may be about. Unless it’s something to do with forcing money on Dezzie or clothes on Dezzie or horses and carriages she can’t afford to maintain on Dezzie?”

    “No. Well, not this time,” he said cautiously.

    Giles sighed. “No. Well, I’ve tried all that, and Lavinia knows it. Dezzie’s as stubborn as a damned mule.”

    “She’s as stubborn as you are, you mean!” he said with feeling.

    “No doubt. Well?”

    “Um... This Parkinson,” said Sir Lionel, wrenching at his neckcloth.

    “Parkinson?” said the Marquis blankly.

    “Ye-es... Dammit, that is the name, isn’t it?” he muttered to himself.

    “I don’t think I know— You don’t mean the Derbyshire family, do you?”

    “NO!” he shouted.

    Rockingham looked at him with a puzzled frown.

    “Fellow’s a parson!” he offered.

    “Oh? The livings within my gift are all occupied, I’m afraid. Though I could get David to check, but I think that is the case.”

    “Not that!” said Sir Lionel, beginning to sweat.

    Rockingham sighed, got up, took his glass off him, refilled it, handed it back, and perched a hip on the edge of his desk. “Come on, Lionel,” he said in a not unkindly voice, looking down at him.

    Sir Lionel gulped Madeira. “Was you or was you not up his sister?” he said desperately.

    “Whose sister?”

    “This PARKINSON’S!” he shouted, very red.

    “Er... Well, I cannot guarantee it, either way, Lion— Great God: you are not talking about little Mrs O’Flynn, are you?” he gasped.

    “That’s the name!” he said, terrifically relieved. “Knew it was some damned Irish or Scotch thing! Went straight out of me head! Lives at Leamington Spa!” he added helpfully.

    “Tunbridge Wells,” said the Marquis heavily. “Lavinia had this off the Quayle-Sturt bitch, I collect?”

    “Er... Could very well have, mm,” he allowed.

    “Lionel,” said the Marquis, running a hand distractedly through his dark curls, “I don’t know how I can possibly prove this to you one way or the other, but Mrs O’Flynn is not and has never been my mistress, the infant is not mine, and I have never laid a finger on the woman! Or given her any reason to expect I might!”

    “I believe you, old boy!” he said hurriedly.

    “Does that count, though?” he asked drily.

    “Er, well—um—no, not all that much.”

    After watching him sardonically for a moment Giles added: “Does it matter whether Lavinia is convinced or not? And why the Hell is she so concerned about it, all of a sudden? I seem to remember she told me I could mount as many mistresses as I pleased the length and breadth of the country and she wouldn’t give a damn!”

    “No, she wouldn’t. Well, dare say she might mind if you was to go right over the edge, old fellow, family name and so forth. Um—no, thing is, it’s the brother.”

    His Lordship recalled fuzzily that Lionel had, indeed, started off muttering about Parkinson. “Er—yes? Oh, I see. Yes, I believe he is perfectly respectable and you need not hesitate to present him with a living—”

    “NO!”

    “Well, for God’s sake, what?” he cried.

    “Lavinia’s idea is—” He swallowed. “I’m not guaranteeing it, mind, but you know what women are: instinct for it, or some such.”

    “For God’s sake, Lionel!”

    “She thinks Susan may have fallen for the fellow: met him at Ainsley Manor when she was down here just a while back. –Yes, and if Lavinia ain’t chewed your ear for never payin’ the girl a blind bit of notice all the time she was there, you may expect her to before you’re very much older!” he added with feeling.

    “I shall. Er—so this Parkinson wishes to pay his addresses to Susan, then?”

    “Well, no. Ain’t got that far. Lavinia thought we’d best find out for sure—um—first. Well, might’ve needed to get the girl off out of his way—send her to old Cousin Mabel Partington-Gore if the worst came to the worst, y’know! Or—uh—tour of the lakes, or something!”

    “Er—quite,” he said dazedly. “Oh, I see! Lavinia wishes to be assured that—” He broke down and laughed helplessly.

    “Hah, hah,” said Sir Lionel sourly when he appeared to be over it.

    “It would be keeping it in the family!” he gasped.

    “That ain’t funny, Giles!”

    “No!” he gasped.

    Sir Lionel glared. “She’ll never take your word without proof, y’know!”

    “Thank you very much,” Rockingham replied coldly. He looked at Sir Lionel’s red and desperate face, and sighed. “Look, the story’s not mind to tell, poor damned little woman. You had best get Lavinia to write to Anne. I come into it merely as—er—a supernumerary.”

    “Huh?”

    “Lionel, I was not mixed up with her in any way. She is a protégée of Mamma’s. One of her wet fish,” he added, lips twitching.

    “Oh—ah. Mm. Yes, well, she has written to her: hasn’t got a reply yet, though. Would have asked you sooner, y’know, only we was rather tied up: promised Prinny I would put in an appearance at his reception last week, y’ see, and then Lavinia had gone and told the damned Lieven woman we should not fail her at a damned dinner.”

    “So you said.”

    “Did I?”

    “Yes. I did rather wonder at the time why you were excusing an uninvited visit on the score of not having been able to make it an even earlier uninvited visit; but now, of course, I perfectly understand.”

    Sir Lionel got up, looking cross, and went over to the door. “Know what I reckon you need?”

    “No, but I am sure you are going to tell me.”

    “A parcel of brats round your knee, that’s what!” he said, looking at his knee with dislike.—Rockingham glanced down at his breeches in surprize.—“Might rub a few of the damned corners off you!” He opened the door. “Only I pity the brats!” he said loudly, going out.

    The Marquis sighed and went slowly round to sit at his desk. “So do I, on the whole,” he sighed. “…Oh, God.” He passed a hand wearily over his face. After a few moments, since Lionel wasn’t there to see him do it, he poured himself a cup of cooled tea and drank it off thirstily.